The Unexpected Evolution of Language (10 page)

In 1962, Andy Warhol shocked the art world by producing a silk-screen canvas that’s come to be known as
Campbell’s Soup Cans
. Although so-called pop art already existed, Warhol’s work was the shot heard ’round the art world.

Abstract expressionists and the high-art aficionados who bought abstract expressionist works abhorred Warhol. Abstract expressionism is nonrepresentational and, for most, just looks like a bunch of paint rubbed or dripped onto a canvas. Arguably, the most famous painter of this school is Jackson Pollock.

On the other side of this cultural divide were artists like Warhol and the everyday folks who absorbed popular culture like a sponge. They decided that advertisements, comic books, and popular products deserved to be considered high art. They won, as evidenced by the proliferation of “artsy” advertisements strewn throughout the typical highbrow magazine like
Vanity Fair
.

D

dab

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to strike with a weapon

NEW DEFINITION:
to press lightly and repetitively

From the 1300s to the 1550s, “dab” meant “to strike a heavy blow with a weapon.” Picture knights of old with those spike-covered clubs going at on one another for the courtly love of a fair maiden.

And then “dab” became less brutal. The rise of firearms contributed to the word losing its power. People weren’t as likely to club each other with weapons; they shot each other instead.

More importantly, the mongrelization of English came into play: Many confused “dab” with the Old French word “dauber,” which led to the English word “daub” (meaning to smear or coat something). Thus, some painters were said to “daub” paint onto their canvases … sometimes as a compliment and sometimes as an insult. By the 1600s, “dab” developed its modern meaning, paving the way for cheesy radio and television jingles promoting hair products.

daft

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
gentle

NEW DEFINITION:
simple-minded

Believe it or not, this word didn’t start out as an insult. Its Old English version actually suggested someone gentle. By the Middle Ages, it began to refer to someone who was dull. The transition, in part, was due to the fact that many gentle people are perceived as, well, dull. They don’t do exciting things. They don’t start fights or play rugby.

In addition, “daft” is a good example of the muddle caused by the great English word “salad.” “Daft” became akin to “feeble-minded” because the word resembled “daffe,” which meant “half-wit.”

Fans of British comedy are familiar with this word in its current form, which is used the way Americans throw around “moron,” “idiot,” and “imbecile” (see entries for “idiot,” “imbecile” and “moron”). If you’re doing something others perceive as stupid, then you’re “daft.” For example, if you “drink and dial” your ex-girlfriend, then your British buddies will call you “daft” (or worse).

decimate

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to kill one in ten

NEW DEFINITION:
to destroy almost completely

“Decimate” is a word logophiles love to hate because they claim that—sniff, sniff—almost everybody uses it improperly.

Initially, “decimate” was used to describe taking one-tenth of something. During the classical period, it became associated with a particular military action. If a legion—a large group of soldiers—was found to be guilty of cowardice or mutiny, then one out of every ten men in that legion would be slaughtered in recompense. Thus, “decimate” would lead to a relatively small number of executions, all things considered.

Technically, “to decimate” is still to reduce by one-tenth. The problem is that people got confused somewhere in the seventeenth century. Most likely, while some understood the “correct” meaning of “decimate,” others believed it meant to reduce something
to
one-tenth of its former size, rather than just
taking away
one-tenth.

If that’s confusing, think of it this way. You have a hundred soldiers. If you “decimate” this group, you have ninety soldiers. If you reduce the group to one-tenth of its former size, however, then you only have ten soldiers remaining.

That’s a big discrepancy, yet the confusion caused by it remains to this day. That’s why it now means to destroy something almost completely.

deer

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
animal; beast (generic)

NEW DEFINITION:
specific animal

Supposedly, the Inuit (i.e., Eskimos) have dozens of words for snow. They see more of the white stuff than anything else, so it makes sense. Likewise, some Indian tribes are said to have dozens of words for corn because corn is so central to their lives and culture.

Popularity—or omnipresence—of a thing explains how “deer” transformed from a generic word for “animal” and became, well, Bambi’s mother.

An Old English word for animal was “deor,” or deer. The word was used for any creature other than a human being, though the word usually was restricted to wild animals. Even before Old English shifted to Middle English, “deer” began to restrict itself to the denizen of today’s petting zoos.

One likely reason is the popularity of hunting deer. You can imagine how confusing it must have been if you were hunting deer, specifically, and people kept asking you, “Yeah, but what
kind
of deer?” meaning, “What kind of animal?” So people started to call a deer a deer and move on.

defecate

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to purify; cleanse

NEW DEFINITION:
to poop

“Ah,” someone might have said circa 1570. “It smells so nice in here. Someone must have defecated!”

At that time, the word suggested purification, cleaning, getting rid of clutter. “Defecation” comes from a Latin word meaning to purify or cleanse from the dregs—dregs being the last little bit of liquid in a container, the stuff that’s probably 90 percent backwash. Getting rid of that stuff left your wineskins much more sanitary.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the word began to take on its main present-day meaning: to have a bowel movement. Those refined Victorians needed polite ways to discuss horrid bodily functions, and besides, bowel movements “purify” the body and rid us of the “dregs” of last night’s repast.

It’s likely those same Victorians would have fainted dead away if they’d known a term their earthier Old English ancestors used for defecation: arse-gang, or “ass going.”

What a Crock!

In the early 2000s, the Internet became filled with, well, shit. Various bloggers and pseudointellectuals claimed they had found the origin of this common—and vulgar—word for defecation.

The alleged origin story goes something like this: Some ships had the misfortune to carry manure across the high seas. When the manure was stored below decks, water would get into the ship, causing fermentation to begin. As the manure fermented, it released methane gas. Inevitably, someone would go to the hold, light a cigarette, and KABOOM! Sailors finally determined the problem and realized the manure had to be stored above the water line. Thus, they would write on their cargo paperwork the acronym S.H.I.T., which meant “Ship High In Transit.”

The story is a crock. In fact, the word “shit” has been around since at least the 1400s, and its roots are Old English via German, Danish, and Swedish words, all of which always meant “dung.”

derrick

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
hangman

NEW DEFINITION:
device for lifting large objects

Thomas Derrick was accused of rape and pardoned by the Earl of Essex on one condition: Derrick had to agree to be an executioner. Elizabethan times weren’t that different from today. Who wants to admit their job title is executioner?

Derrick was very good at his job, which began in 1601. He hanged more than 3,000 people during his career, including—irony of ironies—the Earl of Essex, his erstwhile pardoner. Derrick was so associated with executions during the Elizabethan era that his name became synonymous with hangman.

During his tenure as executioner, Derrick also became a tinkerer (see entry for “tinker”). He made improvements to the gallows, such as adding a pulley system. Prior to Derrick’s enhancements, hangmen just threw the rope over the top of the gallows beam. Derrick made hanging more efficient and more likely to result in a quick death.

Derrick again lent his name to his profession. People began to call his gallows a “derrick.” The modern sense of “derrick” comes from the fact that a derrick looks a lot like a gallows and often works with a pulley system similar to the one Thomas Derrick devised.

deprecate

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to pray against something, in order to make it go away

NEW DEFINITION:
to put down; belittle

“Deprecate’s” roots explicitly contain an entreaty to pray. But let’s face it, if you’re praying
against
something, then, clearly, you don’t approve of it. You think it is worthy of disparagement. That’s how the term came to refer to putting something down, or belittling it.

Today, you often hear the term within the phrase “self-
deprecating.” Most folks like self-deprecating people because they don’t seem to take themselves too seriously. One understands that someone putting herself down doesn’t really mean it; she’s just trying not to sound too full of herself when, for example, she makes a wise point during an argument.

disaster

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
unfavorable arrangement of stars

NEW DEFINITION:
sudden, chaotic event

Ronald Reagan famously believed in the stars. He had an in-house astrologer who may or may not have influenced the fortieth president’s policy decisions. And, of course, some people can’t go a day without consulting their horoscopes. Few scholars today consider it a legitimate science, however.

At one time, astrology was a universally accepted science. Intellectuals and the rabble alike believed that the position of stars and planets guided the destinies of individuals and cultures. For proof, consider the fact that there are three days named for astrological bodies: Monday (moon day), Sunday (sun day), and Saturday (Saturn day).

Thus, at one time, “disaster” meant bad (“dis”) stars (“aster”). In other words, astrological charts indicated when you should probably call in sick to work. If something catastrophic occurred to you or to your community or to the entire world, many thought “disaster” (an unfavorable alignment of the stars) was to blame.

The scientific community lost its belief in astrology as a science in the late eighteenth century and replaced it with the empirical science of astronomy. As that happened, “disaster” stopped being related to the stars, but it kept its sense of “something awful happening.”

discotheque

Original meaning:
record collection

NEW DEFINITION:
club that plays recorded music

The French word for library is “bibliotheque.” As young people—
in France and elsewhere—became aficionados of recorded music, they developed a word for their record collections: “disco” (record) plus “theque” (collection).

By the mid-1950s, as rock ’n’ roll began to hold sway, clubs opened to which young people brought their records and danced to them. By metonymy, the clubs themselves became discotheques. (Metonymy occurs when you replace one object with another closely related to it. For example, Brits talk about “the crown” when they mean the monarchy. Yanks say “the White House” when they mean the president.)